Trump with his pants down at his ankles, both hands wrapped around an Emmy trophy — that's the image "South Park"'s official Instagram posted on the night of the win, captioned with a single line: "You finally got your Emmy."
"South Park" took home Outstanding Animated Program this time, with the official post reading: "Congrats to Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and the entire South Park team on their Emmy win for Outstanding Animated Program!" But the real talk of the town was that trolling image. The joke references Trump's own unresolved history with the Emmys: he was nominated for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program for "The Apprentice" in both 2004 and 2005, and lost both times.
This isn't the first time "South Park" has gone after Trump. Recent seasons have repeatedly targeted the U.S. president, giving him a romance storyline with Satan, mocking his "mini" size, and even featuring a scene implying a relationship with Vice President J.D. Vance. In the version streaming on Paramount+ in the UK, these bits have become practically a recurring feature.
Trey Parker recently revealed in an interview that the drive behind this "keep hitting Trump" streak actually started as a comeback. He told The Hollywood Reporter: "We were only going to rip on him hard in the first episode. Then it turned into 'who's bullying who now,' and it became this really childish joke: we're not going to stop, we're doing it every episode." He continued: "Even when everyone says 'okay, time to move on,' we're still going to say 'no, we're not moving on, we're just going to keep doing it' — and that became the bit itself."
The White House responded last July, publicly stating that "this show has been irrelevant for over 20 years." According to Parker and Stone, it was that very line that made them decide to keep going.
As for why Trump keeps showing up in the show, Parker offered another explanation in an interview with The New York Times: "It's not that we've become political, it's that politics has become pop culture." He said: "Whether it's the actual government or all the podcasts, TikTok, YouTube — everywhere you look is politics, because it's not just politics anymore, it's pop culture."
